Perhaps the can with a saucer lid has grated bar soap to be used as laundry soap.

Fear not, children, Nancy Drew will figure it out.

I'll guarantee that living through a winter in that building in Itasca County would be a bone-chilling existence. That washing machine will be unusable for at least 5 months. That huge crock on the right will, if it collects any water, be cracked in half by springtime.

On the other hand, the children look healthy and well-fed, as do many of the others pictured in farm-state locations, unlike some who lived in mining areas or inner cities.

That chimney is giving lesson on how to dance the wah-wahtusi. A little to the left a little wiggle to the right.

I've never thought of Spry as a laundry additive. They must have used it to make wringing smoother.

The living shed.

When I was in my early teens, in the 1960s, we spent summers at a place my grandmother owned in Duxbury, Mass. It was an old house, located on property which had been a shipyard in the 1800s. The house had been added onto multiple times, and had no basement except under one section, where there was a furnace. Located in that small room was a very close relative of the washtub and wringer shown in the photo. Never used while I was there, but the photo brought back the memory.

Chimney. Topple is in its future. Maybe in the FALL.

I bet washing clothes in January was "loads" of fun!